Plekhanov was and will remain a Menshevik. Therefore, the liquidators' usual references to the "Bolshevik" nature of the Party's 1908 decision are doubly wrong.

The more abuse the liquidators hurl at Plekhanov in Luch and Nasha Zarya, the clearer is the proof that the liquidators are in the wrong and that they are trying to obscure the truth by noise, shouting and squabbling. Some times a novice can be stunned at once by such methods, but for all that the workers will lind their bearings and will soon come to ignore this abuse.

Is the unity of the workers necessary? It is.

Is the unity of the workers possible without the unity of the workers' organisation? Obviously not.

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What prevents the unity of the workers' party? Disputes over liquidationism.

Therefore, the workers must understand what these disputes are about in order that they themselves may decide the destiny of their Party and defend it.

The first step in this direction is to acquaint themselves with the Party's first decision on liquidationism. The workers must know this decision thoroughly and study it carefully, putting aside all attempts to evade the question or to side-track it. Having studied this decision, every worker will begin to understand the essence of liquidationism, why it is such an important and such a "vexed " question, why the Party has been faced with it during the four years and more of the period of reaction.

In the next article we shall consider another important Party decision on liquidationism which was adopted about three and a half years ago, and then pass on to facts and documents that show how the question stands at present.

This decision clearly shows that three and a half years ago all the Marxists, as represented by all the trends without exception, were obliged unanimously to recognise two deviations from Marxist tactics. Both deviations were recognised as dangerous. Both deviations were explained as being due, not to accident, not to the evil will of certain individuals, but to the "historical situation " of the working class movement in the present period.

Moreover, this unanimous Party decision points to the class origin and significance of these deviations. For Marxists do not confine themselves to bare and hollow references to disruption and disintegration. That sense of confusion, lack of faith, despondency and perplexity reign in the minds of many adherents of democracy and socialism is obvious to all. It is not enough to admit this. It is necessary to understand the class origin of the discord and disintegration, to understand what class interests emanating from a non-proletarian environment foster "confusion" among the friends of the proletariat.

And the Party decision adopted three and a half years ago gave an answer to this important question: the deviations from Marxism are generated by "bourgeois counter-revolution ", by "bourgeois influence over the proletariat".

What are these deviations that threaten to surrender the proletariat to the influence of the bourgeoisie? One of these deviations, connected with the Vperyod line and renouncing Social-Democratic activities in the Duma and the utilisation of legal possibilities, has almost completely disappeared. None of the Social-Democrats in Russia now preach these erroneous non-Marxian views. The Vperyod

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group (including Alexinsky and others) have begun to work in Pravda alongside the pro-Party Mensheviks.

The other deviation indicated in the Party decision is liquidationism. This is obvious from the reference to the "renunciation" of the underground and to the "belittling" of its role and importance. Finally, we have a very precise document, published three years ago and refuted by no one, a document emanating from all the "national" Marxists and from Trotsky (better witnesses the liquidators could not wish for). This document. states directly that "in essence it would be desirable to call the trend indicated in the resolution liquidationism, a trend which must be combated. . .".

Thus, the fundamental and most important fact that must be known by everyone who wants to understand what the present controversy is about is the following -- three and a half years ago the Party unanimously recognised liquidationism to be a "dangerous" deviation from Marxism, a deviation which must be combated and which expresses "bourgeois influence over the proletariat".

The interests of the bourgeoisie, whose attitude is against democracy, and, generally speaking, counter-revolutionary, demand the liquidation, the dissolution of the old Party of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie are doing everything they can to spread and foster all ideas aimed at liquidating the party of the working class. The bourgeoisie are trying to encourage renunciation of the old tasks, to "dock" them, cut them back, prune them, sap them of meaning, to substitute conciliation or an agreement with the Purishkeviches and Co. for the determined destruction of the foundations of their power.

Liquidationism is, in fact, the spreading of these bourgeois ideas of renunciation and renegacy among the proletariat.

Such is the class significance of liquidationism as indicated in the Party decision unanimously adopted three and a half years ago. It is in this that the entire Party sees the greatest harm and the danger of liquidationism, its pernicious effect on the working-class movement, on the consolidation of an independent (not merely in word but in deed) party of the working class.

Liquidationism means not only the liquidation (i.e., the dissolution, the destruction) of the old party of the working

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class, it also means the destruction of the class independence of the proletariat, the corruption of its class-consciousness by bourgeois ideas.

We shall give an illustration of this appraisal of liquidationism in the next article, which will set forth in full the most important arguments of the liquidationist Luch. Now let us sum up briefly what we have stated. The attempts of the Luch people in general, and of Messrs. F. Dan and Potresov in particular, to make it appear that "liquidationism" is an invention, are astonishingly mendacious subterfuges based on the assumption that the readers of Luch are completely uninformed. Actually, apart from the Party decision of 1908, there is the unanimous Party decision of 1910, which gives a complete appraisal of liquidationism as a bourgeois deviation from the proletarian path, a deviation that is dangerous and disastrous to the working class. Only the enemies of the working class can conceal or evade this Party appraisal.

Potresov, Dan, Martynov, Yezhov, Martov, Levitsky and Co. -- stressed and gave a popular explanation of Mr. Potresov's words:

"There is nothing to liquidate and -- we for our part [i.e., the editors of Vozrozhdeniye ] would add -- the dream of re-establishing this hierarchy in its old, underground form is simply a harmful, reactionary utopia indicating a loss of political intuition by members of a party which at one time was the most realistic of all." (Vozrozhdeniye, 1910, No. 5, p. 51.)

There is no party, and the idea of re-establishing it is a harmful utopia -- these are clear and definite words. Here we have a plain and direct renunciation of the Party. The renunciation (and the invitation to the workers to renounce) came from people who had deserted the underground and were "longing for" an open party.

"To talk about non-factionalism in the conditions now obtaining," wrote P. B. Axelrod, "means behaving like an ostrich, means deceiving oneself and others." "Factional organisation and consolidation is the manifest responsibility and urgent duty of the supporters of Party reform, or to be more exact, of a revolution in the Party."

Thus P. B. Axelrod is openly in favour of a Party revolution, i.e., the destruction of the old Party and the formation of a new one.

In 1913, Luch No. 101, in an unsigned editorial stated plainly that "among the workers in some places there is even a revival and growth of sympathy for the underground" and that this was "a regrettable fact ". L. Sedov, the author of that article, admitted himself (Nasha Zarya, 1913, No. 3, p. 49) that the article had "caused dissatisfaction", even among the supporters of Luch tactics. L. Sedov's explanations, furthermore, were such as to cause renewed dissatisfaction on the part of a Luch supporter, namely An, who has an item in No. 181 of Luch, opposing Sedov. He protests against Sedov's assumption that the "underground is an obstacle to the political organisation of our movement, to the

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building up of a workers' Social-Democratic Party. An ridicules L. Sedov for his "vagueness" as to whether the underground is desirable or not.

In their long comment on the article the editors of Luch came out in favour of Sedov and stated An to be "mistaken in his criticism of L. Sedov".

We will examine the arguments of the Luch editors and the liquidationist mistakes of An himself in their proper place. That is not the point we are discussing here. What we must go into carefully at the moment is the fundamental and principal conclusion to be drawn from the documents quoted above.*

The entire Party, both in 1908 and in 1910, condemned and rejected liquidationism, and explained the class origin and the danger of this trend clearly and in detail. All the liquidationist newspapers and journals -- Vozrozhdeniye (1909-10), Nasha Zarya (1910-13), Nevsky Golos (1912), and Luch (1912-13)** all of them, after the most definite and even unanimous decisions of the Party, reiterate thoughts and arguments of an obvious liquidationist nature.

* In the symposium Marxism and Liquidationism Lenin substituted for this paragraph, up to the word "fundamental", the following text (reproduced from the manuscript):
"In No. 8 of Zhivaya Zhizn (July 19, 1913) Vera Zasulich repeating dozens of liquidationist arguments wrote: 'It is difficult to say whether the new organisation [the Social-Democratic Party] . . . helped or hindered the work.' Clearly these words are tantamount to renunciation of the Party. Vera Zasulich justifies desertion from the Party by saying: the organisations lost their members 'because at that time there was nothing to do in them'. Vera Zasulich is creating a purely anarchist theory about 'a broad section' instead of a party. See the detailed analysis of this theory in Prosveshcheniye No. 9, 1913. (See pp. 394-416 of this volume. --Ed. [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "How Vera Zasulich Demolishes Liquidationism". -- DJR])
"What then constitutes the . . ." --Ed.
** The symposium Marxism and Liquidationism adds "and Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta (1913-14)" with the following footnote:
"See, for example, Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta No. 1, 1914, the New Year's leading article: 'The road to an open political party of action is also the road to party unity' [to the unity of the builders of an open party?]. Or No. 5, 1914: 'surmounting [all the obstacles that are placed in the way of organising workers' congresses] is nothing more nor less than a most genuine struggle for the right of association, i.e., for the legality of the working-class movement, closely connected with the struggle for the open existence of the Social-Democratic Labour Party.'" --Ed.

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Even "Luch" supporters are forced to declare that they disagree with these arguments, with this preaching. That is a fact. Therefore, to shout about the "baiting" of liquidators, as Trotsky, Semkovsky and many other patrons of liquidationism do, is downright dishonesty, for it is an absolute distortion of the truth.

The truth proved by the documents I have quoted, which cover a period of more than five years (1908-13), is that the liquidators, flouting all Party decisions, continue to abuse and bait the Party, i.e., the "underground".

Every worker who himself wants to examine seriously the controversial and vexed questions of the Party, who wants to decide these questions for himself, must first of all assimilate this truth, making an independent study and verification of these Party decisions and of the liquidator arguments. Only those who carefully study, ponder over and reach an independent decision on the problems and the fate of their Party deserve to be called Party members and builders of the workers' party. One must not be indifferent to the question of whether it is the Party that is "guilty" of "baiting" (i.e., of too trenchant and mistaken attacks on) the liquidators or whether it is the liquidators who are guilty of flagrantly violating Party decisions, of persistently advocating the liquidation, i.e., the destruction of the Party.

Clearly, the Party cannot exist unless it fights with might and main against those who seek to destroy it.

Having quoted the documents on this fundamental question, we shall, in the next article, pass on to an appraisal of the ideological content of the plea for an "open party ".

The petty-bourgeois Narodniks,[60]in imitation of the Cadets, took up the slogan of "a struggle for an open party". In August 1906, Messrs. Peshekhonov and Co. of Russkoye Bogatstvo renounced the underground, proclaimed the "struggle for an open party", and cut the consistently democratic "underground" slogans out of their programme.

Thanks to their reformist chatter about a "broad and open party", these philistines have been left, as all can see, without any party, without any contact with the masses, while the Cadets have even stopped thinking of such contacts.

Only in this way, only by analysing the position of the classes, by analysing the general history of the counter revolution, is it possible to understand the nature of liquidationism. The liquidators are petty-bourgeois intellectuals, sent by the bourgeoisie to sow liberal corruption among the workers. The liquidators are traitors to Marxism and traitors to democracy. The slogan of "a struggle for an open party" in their case (as in the case-of the liberals and the Narodniks) only serves to camouflage their renunciation of the past and their rupture with the working class. This is a fact that has been proved both by the elections in the worker curia for the Fourth Duma and by the history of the founding of the workers' paper Pravda. It is obvious

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to all that contact with the masses has been maintained only by those who have not renounced the past and who know how to make use of "open work" and of all and sundry "possibilities" exclusively in the spirit of that past and for the purpose of strengthening, consolidating and developing it.

In the period of the June Third system it could not be otherwise.

"Curtailment" of the programme and tactics by the liquidators (i.e., liberals) will be discussed in our next article.

"Deputy Muranov so far recognises only three partial demands, which, as is known, were the three pillars of the election platform of the Leninists: the complete democratisation of the state system, an eight-hour day and the transfer of the land to the peasants. Pravda, too, continues to maintain this point of view. Yet we, as well as the whole of European Social-Democracy [read -- "we, and also Milyukov, who assures us that, thank God, we have a constitution"], see in partial demands a method of agitation which may be crowned with success only if it takes into account the everyday struggle of

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the working masses. We think that only things that, on the one hand, are of fundamental importance to the further development of the working-class movement, and on the other hand, may acquire urgency for the masses. should be advanced as the partial demand upon which the Social-Democrats should concentrate their attention at the present moment. Of the three demands advanced by Pravda, only one -- the eight-hour day -- plays and can play a part in the everyday struggle of the workers. The other two demands may at the present moment serve as subjects for propaganda, but not for agitation. Concerning the difference between propaganda and agitation, see the brilliant pages of G. V. Plekhanov's pamphlet The Struggle Against Famine. [L. S. is knocking at the wrong door; it is "painful" for him to recall Plekhanov's controversy in 1899-1902 with the Economists whom he is copying!]

"Apart from the eight-hour day, the demand for the right of association, the right to form any kind of organisation, with the corresponding freedom of assembly and freedom of speech both the oral and the printed word, is a partial demand advanced both by the requirements of the working-class movement and by the entire course of Russian life."

Here you have the tactics of the liquidators. What L. S. describes by the words "complete democratisation, etc.", and what he calls the "transfer of the land to the peasants" are not, you see, of "urgency for the masses", they are not "advanced by the requirements of the working-class movement" and "the entire course of Russian life"! How old these arguments are and how familiar they are to those who remember the history of Russian Marxist practice, its many years of struggle against the Economists, who renounced the tasks of democracy! With what talent Luch copies the views of Prokopovich and Kuskova, who in those days tried to entice the workers on to the liberal path!

But let us examine the Luch arguments more closely. From the standpoint of common sense they are sheer madness. Can anyone in his right mind really affirm that the above-mentioned "peasant" demand (i.e., one designed to benefit the peasants) is not "urgent for the masses", is not "advanced both by the requirements of the working-class movement and by the entire course of Russian life?" This is not only an untruth, it is an obvious absurdity. The entire history of nineteenth-century Russia, the entire "course of Russian life" produced that question, made it urgent, even most urgent; this has been reflected in the whole of the legislation of Russia. How could Luch arrive at such a monstrous untruth?

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It had to arrive at it, because Luch is in bondage to liberal policy, and the liberals are true to themselves when they reject (or, like Luch, put aside) the peasant demand. The liberal bourgeoisie does so, because its class position forces it to humour the landowners and to oppose the people's movement.

Luch brings to the workers the ideas of the liberal landowners and is guilty of treachery to the democratic peasantry.

Further. Can it be that only the right of association is of "urgency"? What about inviolability of person? or the abolition of despotism and tyranny, or universal, etc., suffrage, or a single chamber, etc.? Every literate worker, everyone who remembers the recent past, knows perfectly well that all this is urgent. In thousands of articles and speeches all the liberals acknowledge that all this is urgent. Why then did Luch declare urgent only one of these liberties, albeit one of the most important, while the fundamental conditions of political liberty, of democracy and of a constitutional system were struck out, put aside, relegated to the archives of "propaganda", and excluded from agitation?

The reason, and the only reason is, that Luch does not accept what is unacceptable to the liberals.

From the standpoint of urgency for the masses, the requirements of the working-class movement and the course of Russian life, there is no difference between the three demands of Muranov and of Pravda (or, to put it briefly, the demands of consistent Marxists). Working-class, peasant and general political demands are all of equal urgency for the masses, are equally brought to the forefront both by the requirements of the working-class movement and by "the entire course of Russian life". All three demands are also alike because they are the' partial demands dear to our worshipper of moderation and precision; they are "partial" compared with the final aims, but they are of a very high level compared, for example, with "Europe" in general.

Why then does Luch accept the eight-hour day and reject the rest? Why did it decide on behalf of the workers that the eight-hour day does "play a part" in their everyday struggle, whereas the general political and peasant demands do not play such a part? The facts show, on the one hand, that the workers in their daily struggle advance both the general political and the peasant demands -- and, on the other hand,

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that they often fight for more moderate reductions of the working day.

What is the trouble, then?

The trouble lies in the reformism of Luch, which, as usual, attributes its own liberal narrow-mindedness to the "masses", to the "course of history", etc.

Reformism, in general, means that people confine themselves to agitating for changes which do not require the removal of the main foundations of the old ruling class, changes that are compatible with the preservation of these foundations. The eight-hour day,is compatible with the preservation of the power of capital. The Russian liberals, in order to attract the workers, are themselves prepared to endorse this demand ("as far as possible"). Those demands for which Luch does not want to "agitate" are incompatible with the preservation of the foundations of the pre-capitalist period, the period of serfdom.

Luch eliminates from agitation precisely what is not acceptable to the liberals, who do not want to abolish the power of the landlords, but want only to share their power and privileges. Luch eliminates precisely what is incompatible with the point of view of reformism.

That's where the trouble lies!

Neither Muranov, nor Pravda, nor any Marxist rejects partial demands. That is nonsense. Take insurance, for example. We reject the deception of the people by idle talk about partial demands, by reformism. We reject liberal reformism in present-day Russia as being utopian, self-seeking and false, as based on constitutional illusions and full of the spirit of servility to the landlords. That is the point which Luch tries to confuse and hide by phrases about "partial demands" in general, although it admits itself that neither Muranov nor Pravda rejects certain "partial demands".

Luch tones down the Marxist slogans, tries to fit them to the narrow, reformist, liberal yardstick, and thus spreads bourgeois ideas among the workers.

The struggle the Marxists are waging against the liquidators is nothing but an expression of the struggle the advanced workers are waging against the liberal bourgeoisie for influence over the masses of the people, for their political enlightenment and education.

[54]Pro-Party Mensheviks -- a small group of Mensheviks led by Plekhanov that broke with the Menshevik liquidators and opposed liquidationism in the 1908-12 period.
[p. 152]

[55]
Lenin quotes from the decision condemning liquidationism and otzovism adopted by the January 1910 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. on the question: "The State of Affairs in the Party".
[p. 154]

[56]Vozrozhdeniye (Regeneration ) -- a legal journal published by Menshevik liquidators in Moscow from December 1908 to July 1910.
[p. 156]

page 572

[57]Nevsky Golos (Neva Voice) -- a legal newspaper published by Menshevik liquidators in St. Petersburg from May to August 1912.
[p. 157]

[58]
Lenin refers to the law, promulgated on December 11 (24), 1905, on the convening of a "legislative" State Duma; the law was promulgated by the tsarist government when the Moscow insurrection was at its height. The First Duma, elected under this law, had a Cadet majority.
[p. 162]

[59]
By "Sabler's parsons " Lenin means the orthodox priests who were drawn into active participation in the election to the Fourth Duma on instructions issued by the reactionary Sabler, Procurator General of the Synod, to ensure the election of deputies amenable to the tsarist government.
[p. 162]

[60]Narodniks -- supporters of Narodism, the petty-bourgeois trend in the Russian revolutionary movement in the sixties to the eighties of the last century. The Narodniks campaigned for the abolition of the autocracy and the transfer of landed estates to the peasants. They denied that in accordance with the regular laws of capitalism, capitalist relations and a proletariat were developing in Russia and, as a consequence of this, considered the peasantry to be the chief revolutionary force; they regarded the village commune as an embryonic form of socialism. The Narodniks, therefore, went out to the villages to arouse the peasants to struggle against the autocracy. The Narodniks proceeded from a false premise on the role of the class struggle in history, believing that history is made by heroes, who are passively followed by the masses. The Narodniks adopted terrorist tactics in their struggle against tsarism.
In the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century the Narodniks adopted a conciliatory policy towards tsarism, began to fight for the interests of the kulaks and conducted a stubborn struggle against Marxism.
[p. 162]

[61]Stolypin -- Minister of the Interior and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1906 to 1911. With his name are connected the suppression of the First Russian Revolution (1905-07) and the period of brutal political reaction that followed.
Stolypin workers' party -- was the name given by the Russian workers to the Menshevik liquidators who adapted themselves to the Stolypin regime and, at the cost of renouncing the programme and tactics of the R.S.D.L.P., attempted to obtain the sanction of the tsarist government to establish an open, legal, allegedly working-class party.
[p. 166]